Traitor's Blade (The Greatcoats)

by de Castell, Sebastien

  ‘Just wanted to remind you that I do surprise you occasionally,’ I said calmly.

  He didn’t smile.

  Trin came to me. ‘Hide,’ she said, whispering in my ear. ‘They say this city has a thousand places where people could disappear for weeks, even months. Hide until it’s safe and get her out of the city. Stay away from the Morning of Mercy, whatever the girl says. Her name isn’t worth her life.’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ I said.

  ‘Do better,’ she replied, and kissed me on the cheek before running back to rejoin Valiana.

  ‘What are they doing?’ Aline asked, pointing at Shiballe. His two guards appeared to be setting out a chair for him in the street.

  ‘They’re going to make sure we don’t leave,’ I said, ‘not until sunset, when Ganath Kalila begins and the violence starts.’

  ‘Then what?’ she asked.

  ‘Then we begin,’ I said.

  Brasti was the last to leave. He threw his hands up in the air. ‘Fine. Goodbye, Falcio. You were a decent companion, if a little pretentious sometimes. I hope you realise I’m going to rob every damned corpse I encounter from now on.’

  I smiled. ‘I suppose that’s only fair.’

  He walked away, stopping only once to turn and say, ‘I’ll fire an arrow into the dying of the light in your name, Falcio. That’s all I can do for you.’

  That might be something, anyway.

  *

  Having to wait patiently while the sun sets so that three men can kill you is an awkward feeling.

  Shiballe had one of his guards bring him a small table for him to set a bottle of wine on while he passed the time. He kept a pistol on his lap and periodically slid his hand across the smooth wooden grip. The girl had tried to stay awake, but exhaustion overtook fear and she was now sleeping on the bench a few feet behind me.

  ‘A few minutes left, Trattari,’ Shiballe said, sipping his wine. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t rather rejoin your friends?’

  I didn’t bother to reply. When you’re in a situation like this, every movement, every word, has to be about gaining advantage. I needed to get him and his men on edge, and that meant everything was about timing.

  ‘I wonder, Trattari, what prompts a man to stand there, perfectly still, while Death comes to claim him? Is it that you don’t fear Death? Or perhaps that you fear life even more?’

  I waited a moment until he stopped expecting an answer and went back to his wine.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I asked the nearest of the three guards.

  ‘Silence!’ Shiballe said, before the guard could speak.

  I ignored him. ‘My name is Falcio,’ I said.

  ‘You have no name, tatter-cloak!’ Shiballe said.

  I kept my gaze on the guard. ‘My name is Falcio val Mond, and I am First Cantor of the Greatcoats. Do you know what that means?’ I asked.

  The guard didn’t speak, but his mouth opened a little and, despite his efforts to stay still, he shook his head.

  ‘It means that no matter what else happens to me, no matter what happens to the girl, and no matter the little toy your fat friend is stroking, the man nearest to me when the light dies goes to whichever hell waits for men who would murder children.’

  ‘Stop talking to my men, tatter-cloak!’ Shiballe threw his nearly empty wine glass at me.

  I congratulated myself on not flinching at all as it hit my right arm and fell to the street, shattering.

  Shiballe’s men flinched, though.

  ‘My name is Falcio val Mond,’ I said again.

  ‘Say it again, I seem to forget,’ Shiballe snarled. ‘Come on, Trattari, what is your name?’

  ‘You know my name,’ I said softly, eyes still locked on the man in front of me.

  ‘No, really, I can’t remember it. Please do say it again.’

  ‘You know my name,’ I repeated.

  The guard in front of me unconsciously mouthed my name. With the slightest of movements he shuffled back a few inches, putting him just slightly behind the second guard, who suddenly looked very uncomfortable. Good. They were scared. They’d be cautious when it started, and caution isn’t always a good thing in situations like this one.

  ‘The next man who moves a hair dies,’ Shiballe said, pointing his pistol at the second man.

  ‘Keep it on me,’ I said, and Shiballe jerked the pistol back towards me. I smiled just a little, for effect. ‘What’s my name?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t remember the names of dogs,’ Shiballe said.

  ‘You know my name.’

  ‘I’ll kill you right now, dog,’ he said, but it was largely an idle threat. No one in Rijou would violate the one law of the Blood Week, not even him. On the other hand, the last rays of the sun were just starting to fade out.

  ‘Girl,’ I said, ‘get six feet behind me and stay there until it’s done.’

  She got up, and immediately started coughing, no doubt from the smoke she’d inhaled inside her home as it burned her mother and brothers to death, but she looked more dazed than scared as she shuffled a few feet behind me.

  ‘What’s my name?’ I asked the guards again.

  ‘Falcio,’ one of them muttered, and Shiballe almost used up his pistol on him right there, which would have made things much easier. But I knew I wasn’t going to be that lucky.

  Shiballe looked over at the soft glow off the edges of the rooftops and smiled. ‘Another few seconds, tatter-cloak. Any last words?’

  I smiled back at him. ‘Watch out for the arrow.’

  And then the light winked out, a great bell rang, an arrow fell from the sky and all hells broke loose.

  *

  True to his word, Brasti had fired an arrow in my name when the sun died. I imagine he had stood up on the hill outside the first gate, hundreds of yards from where I now stood, and pulled Intemperance from the locking hook attached to his saddle. Intemperance was a greatbow, nearly six feet long and powerful enough to drive the head of an arrow deep into stone or brick, and more than enough to drive through plate-mail. It wasn’t suited to any kind of close fighting, but from a distance – well, from a distance it was like dropping thunderbolts from the sky.

  Now I’ve said that Brasti almost never misses, but this was an impossible shot. To get the kind of distance required he’d have had to carefully factor the breeze and distance, and aim very nearly straight up into the sky, with just the tiniest tilt to ensure its giant arc would bring it down into the middle of the street in Rijou. An impossible shot, as I said, and I won’t try to turn legend into myth by telling you that he somehow managed to drop the arrow through Shiballe’s pistol hand (which would have been awfully nice.) But he did get it close enough to give the fat bastard a start so that Shiballe missed what should have been a sure shot. Instead, the ball from his pistol smashed into the ground between me and the nearest of the three guards, and the man very nearly fell into his neighbour as he lost his footing. I launched myself as high and hard as I could, my left elbow aiming for the first guard’s face even as my right hand drew a rapier from its sheath. If you’re wondering why I moved so quickly and didn’t so much as flinch first, the answer is simple: I’d spent the entire time standing there with Shiballe and his men, preparing for the unexpected. You see, it doesn’t matter how fast or skilled or clever you think you are; four armed men with their weapons out are always going to beat a single opponent, unless something happens to surprise them. Greatcoats carry a good number of things to surprise an opponent, but they don’t work very well if you can’t reach into your coat to get them. So if nothing unusual had happened, I’d doubtless have died before I got my first strike in. A small miracle came along, giving me the initiative, and I just needed to act.

  The point of my elbow connected squarely with the bridge of the first guard’s nose. The other got his blade up in time to block my rapier, but he wasn’t my target. I let my point drop right under the guard of his war-sword and flicked it into the face of the third man.
People always underestimate the reach of a rapier – trust me, it’s longer than it looks.

  I heard the girl behind me scream and saw Shiballe reloading, but I ignored it. By the time he’d got that pistol ready I’d either have won or I’d be dead. I will admit that it’s a bit distracting to have someone a few feet away from you loading a weapon that would definitely kill you, but I had three other opponents to help keep me focused.

  The second man – the one who’d tried to parry me – did a nicely professional job of spinning his block into a downwards vertical strike aimed at my left shoulder. Unfortunately for him, I tilted my body sideways and watched it sail down past my nose before stepping on it hard. Then I flicked the tip of my right rapier past the face of the third man again and drew my second rapier with my left hand, getting it out just in time to make an awkward parry against the first man (the one I’d elbowed in the face). He threw the weight of his own sword into a cut at my left side and I took it on the blade. The force of his blow bashed the side of my rapier against me, but it kept me from suffering more than bruised ribs. I pushed the guard of my rapier down hard to knock his weapon off balance.

  Shiballe was pushing powder into his pistol when the girl foolishly tried to wrest it from his hands.

  ‘Aline, get away!’ I screamed, flicking the tips of both my rapiers up into the faces of my opponents to distract them.

  The girl managed to spill Shiballe’s powder to the ground, but then he grabbed her wrists and flipped her around, getting his right arm around her neck.

  ‘Trattari!’ he shouted. ‘Drop your weapons, or I’ll snap her neck like a twig.’

  Everyone froze. There wasn’t the slightest doubt in my mind that he’d do it, but this is where we get down to the mathematics of the situation. Think of it this way: Shiballe had three men; one, with a broken nose, was bleeding heavily and the other two were getting a little sloppy. Now, let’s say he breaks her neck right now: what happens? Well, I almost certainly launch myself at him, drive my sword into his fat belly and get killed by one of his men. Bad for me, bad for Shiballe – good for Shiballe’s men, but that’s poor consolation when you’ve got a sword buried in your stomach. The math doesn’t really suit Shiballe here.

  Now let’s say instead I nobly put down my weapons. The guards kill me, Shiballe kills the girl, finishes his bottle of wine, and goes home happy. The math is good for Shiballe, but very bad for me and for the girl. So that option doesn’t work either.

  What’s really left? Well, let’s imagine for a moment that time freezes. Where are we? Shiballe’s got the girl so he feels better than if he had nothing and I’m (barely) holding off three guards. No one’s dead yet and everything’s possible and, strange as it might sound, that’s about the best option for everyone.

  But of course time hasn’t frozen, and something has to happen.

  This is where the mathematics really comes into play: you see, while it’s true that almost everyone has an interest in nothing changing, Shiballe’s position doesn’t really change that much whether he has three guards on me or two. I mean, I’m not saying it would be his first choice but he still gets a two-to-one advantage, and he still has the girl. So if something has to happen, then one of the guards dying is, mathematically speaking, the best option available to all of us.

  That’s why I drove the point of the rapier in my left hand into the first man’s throat.

  Shiballe’s arm tightened on the girl’s neck. ‘You’re killing her, Trattari,’ he said.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Reflex.’

  ‘Drop your weapons, dog, and the girl at least will live.’

  Fat chance. ‘You kill her and I’ll stab you in the face long before either of these incompetents gets a blow on me.’

  He hesitated. ‘Then we appear to be at an impasse,’ he said.

  Both his men had their swords ready, but they were waiting for a cue to act.

  ‘Not really,’ I said. Remember the maths? ‘You see, there are only a few possible outcomes here: one, you kill the girl, I kill you, your men kill me. The second possibility, you don’t kill the girl, I kill your men, and then I kill you.’

  ‘I think I can see another possible outcome, Trattari,’ he said. ‘Another of my men comes down the street, sees what’s happening and kills you.’

  One of the guards smiled at that prospect.

  ‘Don’t get your hopes up,’ I told him. ‘This’ll be over long before that happens.’

  The guard tightened his grip on his sword. I looked back at Shiballe. ‘There is a third alternative.’

  ‘Ah, of course, you mean the one where we let you go on your merry way and trust you won’t murder me in my sleep?’ he asked.

  ‘No, don’t be silly. I’m going to kill you one way or another, if not today, then someday in the future. You’re a sick bastard and I can’t stand the idea of a world that has you in it. No, my solution is much simpler, and actually has a chance of working.’

  I took a breath. ‘You order your men to attack me together and you start running as fast as you can. Sure, they’ll be sacrificing themselves, but as long as they’re trying to stay alive they’ll give you the time you need to get away into the alleyways of this shithole you call a city. Chances are I won’t get to you before either you’re well hidden or someone comes along to kill me and the girl.’

  I waited for a moment to let him think about it. ‘It really is the best option, mathematically speaking,’ I said, to reassure him.

  His men were shifting nervously. ‘I like you, tatter-cloak,’ Shiballe said cheerfully. ‘You make good sense. However, if my guards attack you now, it really won’t impede my progress that much if I just twist this harlot’s daughter’s head off first, so I think that’s what we’ll do.’

  I sighed. ‘You really don’t understand probability and mathematics, now, do you, Shiballe?’

  He screamed for his men to attack, grabbed the girl’s head with his free hand, keeping his right arm firmly around her neck, and started to twist.

  I threw my right-hand rapier at Shiballe’s face, point-first. Startled, he ducked, nearly losing his footing. As his men leapt for me, the girl squirmed out of his grasp and – stupidly – ran for the pistol, which was still unloaded. I sidestepped one blade and blocked the other. Shiballe reached for the girl again, but by then I’d kicked the knee out from the guard on my left and Shiballe saw the odds shifting against him. ‘Fight, you damned fools!’ he screamed as he ran for the alleyway on the other side of the street.

  The guard whose knee I’d broken did an admirable job of fighting through the pain. He grabbed my left leg, pulling me down to the ground and giving his friend an opening to bring his blade down on me. As I went down on my back I shifted my rapier to my right hand and extended it fully. The tip pierced the attacker’s throat and his blade fell from his hand as his knees buckled under him.

  That left the girl holding an empty pistol and clicking the trigger futilely, Shiballe long gone into the alleyways of the city, looking for help, and me lying on my back with the first guard still holding my leg and pulling a knife from his belt.

  ‘What’s my name?’ I asked calmly.

  He stopped and looked back at me for a second, maybe trying to figure his chances. After a moment he slid back, dropped the knife and said, ‘Idiot should’ve killed the girl first.’

  ‘True,’ I said, getting my feet under me and standing.

  ‘Are you going to kill me now? I thought you tatter-cloaks didn’t do that unless there was no other way?’ the guard asked, holding his broken knee.

  ‘No, I’m not going to—’

  The point of a rapier stabbed into his right ear. I got my sword up, and only then realised the girl had done it: she had dropped the useless pistol and picked up my fallen rapier and driven it into the side of the man’s head.

  Calmly as anything, she pulled the blade back out, wiped the blood off on the guard’s face and handed the rapier back to me, hilt first.

 
‘We should run now,’ Aline said.

  THE BULLY BOYS

  My strategem for keeping the girl alive was simple: find a place to hide and stay there until the week was over. Then she would be free to seek shelter from another noble family, or she could leave the city entirely. Either way, she would be alive, and that was a good enough outcome for me. Find a place to hide, wait until it’s over: nothing could be simpler. It was sometime around the third bell of our first night before I realised why it wouldn’t work.

  Shiballe had assumed that he and his men would be more than sufficient to take out one man and a young girl, and that error in judgement had bought us enough time to make our way from Aline’s street, through the merchants’ quarter and into the Redbrick District. This had been one of the most affluent parts of the city two centuries ago, but over time the red clay used to make the bricks had begun to wear down, making every building a catastrophe waiting to happen. The richer merchants moved out and the poor moved into the fallen buildings and decaying streets. Those who squatted in the most broken-down buildings were the poorest of all. With broken sewer lines, no running water and with every strong storm promising disaster, it was a terrible place to live – but it would have been a perfect place to hide, if it hadn’t been for the magic. Saints, how I hate magic.

  It took us less than an hour to find a suitable hiding place. The building had barely any walls standing and was next to a sealed-off alleyway. The top two storeys had fallen down completely, and the single remaining floor had one long wall and part of another exposed to the elements. But inside, enough debris had fallen to create a kind of fortress within the husk of the old building. There were good sight lines from inside, and at least two escape routes if necessary. Contrary to my expectations, the girl didn’t complain about the standard of accommodation. Instead, she looked around once and then walked in. I made one quick circle around the building to look for possible signs of ownership before I settled down next to her and started rubbing my leg. The wound I’d taken from the constable’s crossbow had mostly healed now, but weeks on the road made for a stiff limb. I supposed it would get all the rest it needed now, though we would soon have to find a source of water and at least a little food to survive the week.